Will Pirates open the books?

April 11, 2010by rob biertempfel

PHOENIX — I got an e-mail this morning from Michael Ozanian, the Forbes editor who last week blogged that Bob Nutting might try to sell the Pirates this summer. Ozanian took exception to Nutting’s brush-off of his report, as well as the Pirates’ routine dismissal of Forbes’ annual franchise valuation numbers.

“I stand by everything in my blog,” Ozanian said. “I would be very happy to review my data with Nutting’s data in front of a non-biased arbiter like yourself to see who is right and publish the results of the findings in both your publication and Forbes.

“The notion that information in our blogs is less credible than information published in Forbes magazine shows Nutting’s ignorance of Forbes. All of our platforms — blogs, videos, online articles, print articles — are subject to the same standards.”

I’d welcome the chance to compare and contrast Forbes’ valuation figures with data from the Pirates. I’m sure a lot of fans would love to crunch those numbers, too.

Of course, the Pirates refuse to open their books, which is their right. But letting in a little sunlight would put a stop to a lot of speculation about the franchise’s status now and in the future.

Comments

Regardless of whether Forbes’ team evaluations are near the mark or not, Michael Ozanian’s source’s accusation that Nutting has used revenue sharing money to buy out partners is completely irresponsible without further understanding of the amount of knowledge that this source has into the Pirates’ situation.

The Brewers recently shot back at the Yankee’s Levine by saying “If he had access to the books, he would see that…”

Doesn’t this tell you that Levine in fact does not have direct access to the books? In other words, if Ozanian’s source is Levine or some other MLB exec that doesn’t have direct access to the books, this accusation on Nutting (like Levine’s implication on the Brewers’ situation) is completely founded on fantasy speculation with the intent on manipulating the process of crafting the next CBA.

Ozanian and the press are simply being manipulated by Levine and the other large market teams in order to throw the small markets even deeper in their respective holes.

With the pirates there is no hope! Even if the greatest players in the farm system make it to pittsburgh, they will sell or trade them. That has been the record of the past 15 years. They do not even sign good players in the draft because they might cost too much. Baseball in general will die without a salary cap. Can you think of another sport that has not changed the rules for 100 years. Oh wait we have the designated hitter. Can you think of another sport that has no clock, God, even poker has a clock.